I am one of millions who came of age in the digital age. And though most of the memories run together like the stains of my lost adolescent dreams (really, I’m fine…), there are still a few bits of nostalgia that I’m able to cough up after a good meal. It was a time before networking forums, the ability to stalk your social prey, and before you could peruse the Internet for gossip, rumors, and literary detritus. And it was during that time---those honeymoon, pioneering days of intellectual responsibility’s downfall---that my personal preferences were solidified in e-mail survey (En Vogue over La Bouche, JNCO jeans over Paco jeans, lipliner over a frosted gloss) and two solid years of my life were lost. It was a simpler time. A purer time. That is, until the Internet turned its HTML encoded back on me.
‘Twas the summer after 7th grade and Bups and I were fixated on a website that promised answers to some of our biggest questions: What type of personality are you? What animal are you? What does your urinary tract infection say about you? We didn’t have much going for us that summer and thus, studiously filling out multiple-choice questions was how we enjoyed our time away from the rigors of middle school and studiously filling out multiple-choice questions. It was bottom of the 9th in our quizzical game and I was on deck. Bups just finished her at bat, was running the home stretch, and then across the screen flashed her grand slam answer: Ben Affleck. I readied myself for my turn. My celebrity love match, I thought. I pictured the racially harmonious rendition of “Ebony and Ivory” that Tyrese and I would perform; I primed my lungs for the joint I hoped Brad Renfro would pass me under the table at our first date; I could taste the Atlantic on Leonardo diCaprio’s lips (salty with a hint of boyish fear). And so the first ball was thrown.
I ran through the questions with anticipation and an irrational passion burning within. I had no delusions of this exam’s authenticity. But when you’re 13 and, by all admissions have little to nothing to cling to, it’s the sweet scent of impossibility that keeps you from going off the deep-end and telling everyone that Sarah in 8th grade contracted crabs from masturbating on the beach. Whether it’s true or not. That said, the prospect of being linked to Ricky Martin’s deceptively heterosexual and Lycra-clad hips made the late June heat that much less suffocating. I clicked with confidence on my final answer. It felt good. I had already wasted too much of my short romantic career trying to win the fleeting affections of boys twice my age with half my intelligence. Now, that isn’t to say Brad, Leo, or Ricky were any different, but these fellas had the hazy edges of a soft lense working in their favor. Should I end up with any one of these genetically gifted creatures, I would know that it happened organically and was electronically predestined.
The screen blurred. A wheel spun. My prince was soon-to-be revealed.
And there he was. My love match. He was the one who, for better or worse, I was mentally, emotionally, and romantically suited for. He was my carefully calculated partner in life, the celebrity yin to my adolescent yang. He was the beat to my heart’s drum, the driver to my soul’s taxicab; he was the supposed apple of my candy-obsessed eye.
He was Danny fucking DeVito.*STRANGEWAYS NOTE: As of March 29, there is no longer deception in Ricky's hips. Rather, they are now "fortunate homosexual" hips. Cheers, girl!
